Lib at Large: Marin hosts the world's fastest sailboat

LIKE A CHAMPION sprinter preparing for a marathon, the fastest sailboat in the world has been anchored at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon while it trains for its greatest challenge yet — shattering the Transpacific speed record.

The Hydroptere, a celebrated French hydrofoil that is part boat and part plane, made sailing history in 2009, shattering the official world speed record for 500 meters, skimming over the water at nearly 61 mph (52.58 knots).

Two months later, it cracked the 50-knot barrier for a nautical mile, sailing at an average speed of just under 58 mph (50.17 knots).

Now its skipper and designer, an exuberant Frenchman named Alain Thebault, and his four-man crew are readying their high-tech trimaran for an assault on the Transpac record in the spring, when they hope to ride the Pacific swell from Los Angeles to Honolulu faster than anyone ever has under sail power.

"We know how to fly steady, so I'm confident we can break the record," Thebault said the other day as he and his crew clambered around their celebrity sailboat, making sure everything is ship shape. "But we have to stay humble."

With its distinctive black scales, the Hydroptere has been nicknamed "the flying fish." Thebault calls it his "flying carpet." Its name combines the Greek words "hydros" (water) and "ptère" (wing).

Made of carbon fibre and titanium, the Hydroptere boasts a 79-foot wingspan tipped with hydrofoils. Its aeronautical design allows it to lift out of the water with as little as 12 knots of wind.

When it's sailing at top speed, it rises more than 15 feet in the air, with only a small patch of the boat actually touching the water, eliminating drag and achieving breathtaking speeds.

"It's incredible," said navigator Jeff Mearing, a 31-year-old English sailor who operates a computer system in the boat's narrow cabin, where three crew members can sleep, not very comfortably.

"It's like you're in a plane. Spray is coming off the foils. It's effortless the way this boat blasts along. You're going, 'Whoo-hoo!' It's crazy."

Using the Corinthian as their home base, Thebault and his crew have been staying in Marin homes while they practice for the Transpac in the winter winds of San Francisco Bay, turning heads as their spectacular winged trimaran flies over the water, trailing rooster tails of spray.

"Every day there is 20 knots of wind between the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz," Thebault said in his heavily accented English. "The Golden Gate is a mythical bridge for us. I'm so happy to fly under it."

Sailing buffs have been flocking to the Corinthian to take a look at a sailboat that accelerates faster than a 250 horsepower speedboat. A video of Hydroptere in action runs on a TV set in the yacht club's bar.

Thebault, who grew up in an orphanage and dreamed of sailing a flying boat since he was a young boy, had hoped to break the Transpac record of four days, 19 hours last summer, but the Hydroptere had to be sent on a cargo ship and by the time it arrived and went through customs, the optimum weather window had closed.

Undeterred, he and his crew sailed up the coast to San Francisco Bay and immediately felt right at home at the Corinthian as they prepare for their record attempt in May or June, just before the America's Cup.

"We arrived here to stay for one week, and we've been here two months," Thebault laughed. "We would love to live here."

Thebault has crashed the Hydroptere four times, rebuilding it and making modifications, such as shock absorbers on the hydrofoils, after each mishap. He had to scuttle a run at the Trans-Atlantic speed record when the boat hit a turtle the size of a Volkswagen. But he feels the Transpac record is within his reach. All he needs to realize his dream is the money to pay for it.

To finance next year's record attempt, he needs to raise between $3 and $3.6 million and has been looking to Silicon Valley for sponsors. He took Google co-founder Larry Page for a sail and he's been courting other computer tycoons, and figures that it's only a matter of time before he infects them with his irrepressible enthusiasm.

"I love the pioneering spirit here," he said. "France is a little bit narrow minded, but here is more open minded. Here anything is possible."